Rumours and Stuff

[Poupou Escobar]

So you agree Hodgson has been poor?

Excellent. Then why are you slavishly devoted to his retention in first grade? Do we have to wait for him to be dropped for you to claim that you knew all along that he was not up to it?

If we dropped everyone for poor form we wouldn't have a team. Hodgson is still in our best 17 players, and in round one he more than held his own, so his knee is fine. Since then we have just gotten looser every week, especially our first halves. Maybe that's Hodgson's fault, but at this stage it's only a correlation.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Agreed. I haven't made my call on him yet for two reasons, firstly the team due to its other deficiencies is not going to well and now with RCG out will only be worse from here on in and therefore it will be so much harder to judge him on his defensive work in particular. But his service is crisp and direct which is a good thing. Not as good as Mahoney's though. Secondly he hasn't played enough NRL to evaluate correctly either. But like I said I do like his service, so far it has been consistently in front of the receiver even under fatigue which is a great sign.

One thing we can tell though from the outset he is not an overly crafty or dynamic dummy half thus far otherwise we would have seen this already and obviously the Panthers wouldn't have let him go. It's not like he is a 17-18 year old like Mahoney was and they didn't know exactly what they had. He is what 23 already?

No at best I see him developing once NRL fit into a solid not to many frills DH. As for running game, he is super fit, so lets hope with extra NRL and confidence he surprises us all and has a solid crack at that part of his game and does it well so Potato Head doesn't tell him to stop it and just focus on servicing the ball.

I mean, when you only have two recognised front rowers in your team it is imperative that your dummy half can isolate weak ruck defense and run. Even Souths when they won their last premiership using a power game(they had at least 4-5 middles taking it up) still had the best running DH in the game in I. Luke and for the GF had Koroisau. Potato Head here thinks that he can play a collision power game with 2 palookas up front and a non running DH that can scoot around the ruck and break up middle defense.

Genius.

That's because after a quick play-the-ball the plan is to give it to Drown, Moses and Gutherson. Why do we need a dummy half taking runs off them? Souths had Reynolds and Keary ffs

 

[the phantom menace]

Double...

 

[the phantom menace]

If we dropped everyone for poor form we wouldn't have a team. Hodgson is still in our best 17 players, and in round one he more than held his own, so his knee is fine. Since then we have just gotten looser every week, especially our first halves. Maybe that's Hodgson's fault, but at this stage it's only a correlation.

Unless you actually watch the games, and you can see the "correlation" of Hodgson's decline and its impact in action...

 

[JokerEel]

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[Poupou Escobar]

Unless you actually watch the games, and you can see the "correlation" of Hodgson's decline and its impact in action...

I'm seeing him making a lot of first contact, and not getting much help other than from Hopgood.

 

[hindy111]

If we dropped everyone for poor form we wouldn't have a team. Hodgson is still in our best 17 players, and in round one he more than held his own, so his knee is fine. Since then we have just gotten looser every week, especially our first halves. Maybe that's Hodgson's fault, but at this stage it's only a correlation.

Our middles been getting pounded for weeks. Of course it was going to loosen up with fatigue.

 

[Legal Eel]

If we dropped everyone for poor form we wouldn't have a team. Hodgson is still in our best 17 players, and in round one he more than held his own, so his knee is fine. Since then we have just gotten looser every week, especially our first halves. Maybe that's Hodgson's fault, but at this stage it's only a correlation.

So when does Hodgson's credit for "holding his own" in round one expire? next year? Or only after we are well and truly stuffed for this year?

He is not in our best 17. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous

 

[Legal Eel]

Why should I explain myself to you when you don't bother to actually read what I post ?

It's all there. Hell, even read what I posted today. It's not that hard.

Here's an idiom for free: "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail".

You're already off to a bad start.

So you believe he has been poor, but you demand his retention in the 17?

It is either because you blindly agree with everything the coach does or you are merely trolling other Parra fans for giggles.

 

[hindy111]

I am not concerned if we miss the finals this season. I think we are in a rebuild stage anyhows. I feel even as quick as next season we could be back in the top 5 again. We will have money to spend. Waqa and N.Brown and fingers crossed Hodgson all are off our cap. That will be a nice 1.5mill or close. Especially if consider the 200k we've saved in N.Brown this year.

It is probably to early for any of the young brigade to making a difference or even debut. 2025 is probably going to be a very good year. That means one thing.
BA extended again

 

[hindy111]

So you believe he has been poor, but you demand his retention in the 17?

It is either because you blindly agree with everything the coach does or you are merely trolling other Parra fans for giggles.

He has been rubbish bar round 1. Id still give him 3 or 4 more games based on we have bugger all else.

 

[emjaycee]

So when does Hodgson's credit for "holding his own" in round one expire? next year? Or only after we are well and truly stuffed for this year?

He is not in our best 17. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous

If the coaching staff don't believe that Hands is yet ready for a consistent 80 minute performance, who in the current 30 man squad would you suggest is in the top 17 and could do the job?

 

[Gronk]

So you believe he has been poor, but you demand his retention in the 17?

It is either because you blindly agree with everything the coach does or you are merely trolling other Parra fans for giggles.

You have literally regurgitated the same thing. There is no gotcha here. Go do your research, find out what my position is and then, if you disagree, question it. Right now you're just throwing dumb arse darts at me. Amateur hour.

 

[hindy111]

If the coaching staff don't believe that Hands is yet ready for a consistent 80 minute performance, who in the current 30 man squad would you suggest is in the top 17 and could do the job?

That's the thing. We went into the season with no real back up for a guy whomhas had 3 x Acls in his early 30s and injury prone. That's almost diabolical to think about. Surely someone must of weighed up the risk of
A- Him being old and injury prone
B - Him not getting injured but just never getting back as was already in decline.

That's my issue with this. Why didn't we sign a solid back up. Its mind blowing tbh

 

[84 Baby]

They are based on trying to slow the play-the-ball, like most of the penalties conceded by smart players. Every penalty also represents an unspecified number of unpenalised successful attempts to illegally slow the play-the-ball, which is why every year some good teams and smart players are among the most penalised.

Well he’s definitely trying to slow the PTB, he’s just not very good at it and more than once he’s been penalised when a slow PTB wasn’t required.
You’re allowed to say players have been shit. It’s ok, it’s called role ownership. He hasn’t owned his.

 

[84 Baby]

If the coaching staff don't believe that Hands is yet ready for a consistent 80 minute performance, who in the current 30 man squad would you suggest is in the top 17 and could do the job?

Hands for as long as possible with Jrthur or if necessary Hodgson at the death

 

[Chipmunk]

I am not concerned if we miss the finals this season. I think we are in a rebuild stage anyhows. I feel even as quick as next season we could be back in the top 5 again. We will have money to spend. Waqa and N.Brown and fingers crossed Hodgson all are off our cap. That will be a nice 1.5mill or close. Especially if consider the 200k we've saved in N.Brown this year.

It is probably to early for any of the young brigade to making a difference or even debut. 2025 is probably going to be a very good year. That means one thing.
BA extended again

I tend to agree, and if it just doesn't come together for this season, we should be able to front-load a shit load Moses way this year from his future earnings.

 

[84 Baby]

I'm seeing him making a lot of first contact, and not getting much help other than from Hopgood.

Well then it’s a system issue. If Hodgson/Hopgood’s rushing up is creating such space behind them to be exploited, they shouldn’t be rushing up (or should at least adapt after the first f**ken time it’s exposed). Or it’s a technique issue, very little point rushing up and just having the runner brush past you, have to at least slow them down for support to tackle.

 

[Legal Eel]

You have literally regurgitated the same thing. There is no gotcha here. Go do your research, find out what my position is and then, if you disagree, question it. Right now you're just throwing dumb arse darts at me. Amateur hour.

Do my research? On what? Your circular garbage?

no research needed - you are another who just enjoys being contrary, except in your case it’s so that if Hodgson has one good spell in a game you can claim to be a genius - when in reality his continued selection just handicaps us and will, if not addressed, prematurely end our season

 

[Gazzamatta]

.

That's the thing. We went into the season with no real back up for a guy whomhas had 3 x Acls in his early 30s and injury prone. That's almost diabolical to think about. Surely someone must of weighed up the risk of
A- Him being old and injury prone
B - Him not getting injured but just never getting back as was already in decline.

That's my issue with this. Why didn't we sign a solid back up. Its mind blowing tbh

Exactly. And yet we still have 3 or 4 vacant spots plus Sam L and Mommamia taking up spots and obviously not NRL capable as starters or even back ups. Do MON and BA even talk to each other? I see we have promoted the bench hooker from the 2s to start this week. Is he a sibling to Penriths Sonny Luke I wonder?